Mangled Proverb

Mangled Proverb is a daily word puzzle. A famous saying went through five parrots in five ports, and every parrot got a word or two wrong. Read the mess that came out at the end and work out what it used to say.

"There's no much seeing as a tree teach." Hmm. What could that have been?

HOW IT WORKS

• Type the original saying, one word per box. Each box shows how many letters the word has.
• Green: right word in the right place. Gold: right word in the wrong place.
• Six guesses per proverb.
• Stuck? Fly back to an earlier port to hear a less mangled version. Each step back costs a feather.
• Accents never count against you.

FEATURES

• A new proverb every day, the same for everyone, with a streak to keep
• Voyages: 140 ports across seven voyages on antique world maps
• An archive of every past day
• 37 parrots to collect, from Edward Lear's 1832 hand-coloured plates
• Proverbs written natively in each language: English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese each have their own sayings, not translations
• Share your result as a grid without spoilers
• Stats and a guess distribution
• No timers, no account and no sign-in

THE STORY Captain Pip, a scarlet macaw, sailed the seven seas with seven captains and picked up a saying in every port, getting every one slightly wrong. Now she is retired and writing her memoirs, and you are the one who untangles each saying before it goes into the book. Meanwhile her rival, Admiral Plume, is racing to publish first.

Desktop controls

Type letters, Backspace to erase, Enter to submit. Click a word to select it; onscreen keys also work. Esc goes back, pauses, or opens the quit confirmation. Closing the window saves progress.

Full desktop edition

• No ads or in-app purchases. Play offline without an account.
• Optional helpers are free, once per placement per minute, with the game's existing round limits.
• Bonus-payout offers are removed. Progression and unlocks are earned through play.
• English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese in Settings.
• Windows and Linux, with a resizable desktop window and separate local saves.

Credits

Mangled Proverb A Crystl Labs game. Design, code, story, music and sound: Crystl Labs. Parrot plates: Edward Lear, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832), public domain. Maps: Hendrik Hondius and Johannes Blaeu, public domain. Both via Wikimedia Commons. Art packs: - Edward Lear, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae (1832): 37 hand-coloured parrot plates (Public domain) - 17th-century world maps by Hondius (1630s) and Blaeu (1664) (Public domain) Fonts (EBGaramond, IM Fell English, IM Fell English SC): SIL Open Font License 1.1 unless noted. Engine: Godot Engine (MIT). All characters, places, companies and products in this game are fictional. Full licence texts: LICENSES.txt inside the app package. Support: dev@crystllabs.com